The Directorate of the Bank of Italy has ordered pecuniary sanctions against 27 representatives and former representatives of the old Banca Popolare dell'Etruria e del Lazio, now in liquidation. These are directors, statutory auditors, the general manager, informs Via Nazionale. The fines amount to a total of 2,2 million euros.
Penalties ranging from 52 to 130 euros were imposed on individuals, depending on the degree of responsibility and the length of each person's term of office. Some of the subjects in question, says the Bank of Italy, had already been hit by financial sanctions in September 2014; fines for a total of 2,5 million euros were imposed on that occasion. The proceeding had been opened in December 2013 following the results of a previous inspection carried out during that year.
A flurry of sanctions also from the Antitrust, which fined a series of banks, the Raiffeisen Cooperative Federation and the Trento Federation of Cooperation for a total of 27 million euros for two separate anti-competitive agreements on mortgage and loan rates in the provinces of Bolzano and of Trent.
The Authority ascertained that the Raiffeisen Cooperative Federation and 14 Raiffeisen banks (Bolzano Rural Bank, Brunico Raiffeisen Banks, Lana, Valle Isarco, Merano, Castelrotto-Ortisei, Oltradige, Lagundo, Wipptal, Tures Aurina, Prato-Tubre, Nova Ponente-Aldino, Schlanders and Raiffeisen Central Bank of South Tyrol) were guilty of an agreement restricting competition.
The agreement consisted in the coordination of commercial policies, also through the exchange of sensitive information (interest rates and other economic conditions of the loans), with the aim of limiting the competitive confrontation in the market of bank loans to households in the province of Bolzano. The agreement lasted for a period of approximately seven years (2007-2014).
The Antitrust has also ascertained that "the Trentino Federation of Cooperation - reads the Antitrust note -, by indicating a reference rate for mortgages to the federated Rural Banks and thus limiting the competitive comparison in the market for household loans in the province of Trento, established another agreement restricting competition in violation of antitrust law, implemented between November 2013 and December 2015".
